In practice there is a great variety of requirements when performing finishing, --printing or full-surface application processes on a web of material. Some of these requirements stemming from differences regarding the quality of the goods and the technological requirements, as well as from differences in the lengths of material to be produced.
In the textile finishing industry, there are production runs in which only very small lengths of material have to be produced, such as prints for neckties. There are also production runs where the orders amount to a few hundred meters, as well as large orders, each amounting to several thousand or tens of thousands of meters, which are to be produced with the same application results.
For instance one of the basic requirements in the textile printing practice is the so-called sampling of a new design in various color combinations, each on the shortest possible pieces of material. As a rule, from a great number of such short sample pieces some are selected as a basis for large orders.
In practice, considerable difficulties are encountered in the conversion process from these samples produced on,small length of material to a large-scale production to date there are no installations and methods which can fully meet the existing requirements.